PROCESSING TIMES AND SERVICE STANDARDS

Within 4 months of the date we receive your properly completed application, we will make one of four decisions, and notify you accordingly:

- you will be required to attend an interview at this office with a Visa Officer; or

- your undertake an English language testing procedure which may enable us, on receipt and assessment of the results, to make a positive decision in your case without the need for an interview; or

- a positive decision can be made in your case without the need for an interview or language testing; or

- a negative decision is appropriate in your case. No interview will be held .

See the following flow chart and notes for procedures and further processing time frames:

Note 1 : If an interview is required, you will receive a letter notifiying you of exact time, date and venue of your interview approximately 2-3 months prior to the interview appointment.

We cannot predict when your interview will take place, as our priorities, our workloads and the resources we have to deal with them are all subject to fluctuations beyond our control.

We can advise you that independent category applicants from Hong Kong, Macao and the PRC who submitted their applications to this office in June 1999 are currently being scheduled for interview appointments in December 2000 and January 2001.

We update this website at the beginning of each month to advise of our progress through our interview queues. We suggest that you consult this location regularly to monitor this progress, and to get an indication as to when you may expect your own interview to take place.

Please be reminded that we will only respond to interview scheduling enquiries if the time frames indicated above have passed and you or your designated representative have received no notice from this office of an interview appointment date. You should therefore contact your representative in this regard before you contact this office.

If your application is accepted at interview, procedures and time frames set forth in Notes 3 ,4 and 6 below will apply. If your application is refused at interview, procedures set forth in Note 5 below will apply.

Note 2 : In many instances, our initial review of a case indicates that the interview requirement can be waived if professional independent testing confirms an applicant’s self-assessment on his/her immigration application form of his/her English language abilities. In these situations, we will write to applicants to so advise, and will provide details as to where, when and how they can arrange for their language abilities to be tested. Testing procedures are conducted regularly in several Chinese cities by local offices of the British Council. Results of these tests (known as "IELTS") are sent by the British Council directly to this office.

If we receive IELTS results, we will, within 6 months of receipt, review those results in association with the immigration application. If this review indicates that the interview requirement can be waived, we can proceed directly to procedures leading to the finalization of the case (see note #3 below). If no IELTS results are forthcoming, or if they are provided but our review does not justify a waiver decision, the file will be placed in our interview queue, and the time procedures and time frames set forth in Note 1 above will apply.

There is no requirement that applicants invited to undertake language testing do so. However, we strongly recommend it. In the first place, application processing times can be significantly shortened, and those wishing to immigrate to Canada can get there significantly sooner than those whose applications must wait in interview queues. Secondly, applicants may thereby avoid the time, expense and trouble associated with arranging travel to Hong Kong to attend an interview. Finally, independent language testing gives prospective immigrants an early indication of their language proficiency, and an idea of the extent of upgrading (if any) they may wish to undertake before or on arrival to improve their marketability in and adaptation to Canada.

Applicants do not have to wait to be invited by the Consulate General to undertake language testing. We encourage prospective applicants to undergo testing on their own initiative immediately prior to immigration application submission, and to submit test results at the same time they submit their immigration applications. Following this procedure can even further "fast track" application processing.

Note 3 : If your interview is waived, or if an interview is held and you are determined at its conclusion to meet selection standards in the Independent category of immigration, you and any dependants will be provided instructions to contact one of a list of doctors designated to conduct Canadian immigration medical examinations to undergo a medical examination within 45 days.

At this time, we will initiate background checks for you and any dependants (no action on your part is necessary in this regard) and inform you of any other outstanding requirements that must be attended to before your application can be finalized. Such requirements might include matters such as payment of Right of Landing Fees or provision by you of police clearance certificates, passport information, proof of current employment , etc. Any such requests we make will specifically identify the documentation and/or /information required and set forth a time frame within which it is to be sent.

Note 4 : If there are no complications with your medical examinations or background checks, and if you have responded promptly to any request we may have made for further documentation or information, we should within 2-3 months of your successful completion of the medical examination be able to finalize your case and issue the visa(s).

Note 5 : If you have been assessed at interview as not meeting selection standards in the Independent category of immigration, if you or any dependant is assessed by our Medical Officer to be medically inadmissible to Canada, if you do not pass your background check, or if you do not comply with any requests to submit further documentation or information within the deadlines set forth, your application will be refused. A letter explaining the grounds for refusal of the application will be sent to you.

Note 6 : Visas will be issued and sent to the mailing address you have indicated. Visas are usually valid for 12 months from the day the first family members began their medical examination procedures. All family members must have landed in Canada prior to the expiry days set forth on the visas. There are no extensions to visa validity. Persons whose visas expire must submit new application and pay new processing fees for any reconsideration of their situations.